Skip to main content

Historic promenade given a facelift

In the UK, Foster Contracting was part of the team that carried out road improvements to the main route along the historic promenade of the seaside town Great Yarmouth, in eastern England. The harshness of the sea environment coupled with traffic loading caused the road surface to deteriorate, leading to brittle cracking of the thin surface course and also reflective cracking from overlain service trenches and patches. The town centre was already undergoing a major regeneration and as part of this scheme, i
July 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
In the UK, Foster Contracting was part of the team that carried out road improvements to the main route along the historic promenade of the seaside town Great Yarmouth, in eastern England.

The harshness of the sea environment coupled with traffic loading caused the road surface to deteriorate, leading to brittle cracking of the thin surface course and also reflective cracking from overlain service trenches and patches.
The town centre was already undergoing a major regeneration and as part of this scheme, it was decided to carry out essential carriageway repairs to Marine Parade. Core samples showed the existing road construction comprised a thin pavement with a maximum of 125mm of asphalt overlaying sand and gravel.

To prolong the life of the new road construction, the polymeric geocomposite, PGM-G 100/100, manufactured by 1631 TenCate Geosynthetics, was installed to retard the formation of reflection cracks in the bituminous inlay as well as to seal cracks in the underlying layers and prevent penetration by water and oxygen; reinforce the asphalt layers of the carriageway, and prolong its life.

TenCate PGM-G 100/100 paving geocomposite is a mechanically bonded continuous filament non-woven geotextile made from 100% polypropylene and reinforced with high modulus glass filaments, which allows construction plant to traffic the geocomposite during the surfacing operation without damage or picking up.
Contractor Ennstone Johnston planed 40mm off the carriageway, cleaned the exposed surface, and filled exposed cracks greater than 4mm wide to ensure a 100% bond between the planed surface and the paving fabric.

TenCate's specialist installation contractor, Foster Contracting, used its calibrated tanker to spray a bond coat of 160/220 pen bitumen (approximately 1litre/m² at 180°C) onto the planed surface. It then used its bespoke laying machine to install the PGM-G 100/100 under tension onto the hot bond coat.

Finally, Ennstone Johnston overlaid the PGM-G 100/100 with 40mm of a polymer modified proprietary overlay, and a total of 7,000m² of road refurbishment was successfully completed over a seven-day period.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • New system for patching roads from Bituchem
    December 24, 2014
    Bituchem’s FortSeal product has been applied to a countryside highway in Leicestershire to preserve and maintain the road surfacing. The FortSeal preservation product is undergoing a trial by Leicestershire County Council in the UK to assess its future potential in positively affecting the council’s road maintenance budget by prolonging the life of the county’s roads.
  • Cost effective road maintenance
    February 7, 2012
    Highway maintenance and repair is an easy target for cuts in highway budgets, but there are cost-effective measures that can be adopted as Patrick Smith reports
  • Seal of approval
    August 2, 2012
    Timely maintenance using proven cost-effective methods can extend the life of a highway by many years as Patrick smith reports Highways are expensive assets to construct, and the wear and tear of modern traffic means that regular maintenance will delay costly repairs or in extreme cases reconstruction. There are a number of methods of carrying out such maintenance, and these include the use of slurry seals and micro-surfacing, which are cold mixed asphalt which is a mixture of graded aggregate, asphalt emul
  • Durability is crucial while warm mix technology can help disaster recovery
    February 21, 2013
    Why durability is crucial for both emerging and developed economies, and how warm mix technology can help disaster recovery - Kristina Smith reports. When CORE Construction, a 100% owned Ghanaian company, started working on road construction projects five years ago, it was difficult to source the right bituminous mixes. “In the past, most construction firms had a number of challenges when it came to bituminous works, since the local capacity was not well-developed,” said CORE CEO Frank Lartey. CORE’s soluti